North American Waterfowl Management Plan oral history transcript

              NAWMP January 16, 2007

John Cornely – Franklin Gothic Med.

Carl Madsen – Bookman Old Style

Jim McQuag – Bookman Old Style

Harvey Nelson – Bookman Old Style

David Sharp – Bookman Old Style

Bob Streeter – Bookman Old Style

John Cornely – Good afternoon. This is John Cornely, retired US Fish & Wildlife Service and member of the Service Heritage Committee. We’re at the National Conservation Training Center, Tuesday, January 16 of 2007, starting the second in a series of North American Waterfowl Management Plan recording sessions, to record the history of the North American Plan. And this week, especially, we’re going to talk about the Offices in the United States and Canada, and the initiation of several of the first Joint Ventures. With us today we have Carl Madsen, Jim McQuag, Harvey Nelson, Dave Sharp, and Bob Streeter -- all members of the staff of the original Offices in the US and Canada. I’d like to start by having each one of you -- we’ll start with Carl -- just introduce yourself and tell us what your position was, and the respective Office - which Office you were in, and just a little introduction about the … your role in the Office. Carl?

Carl Madsen – Sure. I was brought in 1988 as the habitat specialist for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, US Office. [I] came from a background of mostly wetlands and waterfowl on the prairies, with a particular interest in private lands and agricultural programs. And that’s what I spent my career with … pretty much entirely before that, and brought that interest to the Plan.

John Cornely – Jim?

Jim McQuag – I came to the Canadian Wildlife Service as probably the first Director of the Canadian Wildlife Service not to be a biologist. My background’s in geography and land use planning, which was actually very suitable for working on the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. My position was as Director of Habitat, and then later as Director of Habitat and Water Conservation. And, in that role, I was the lead Canadian -- sort of the Canadian face on the international part of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, and the liaison between the Canadian federal presence in the Canadian Wildlife Service and the Joint Ventures in Canada.

John Cornely – Harvey?

1

Harvey Nelson – Well, I started with the Fish & Wildlife Service back in 1950, so I had an opportunity to serve in a great variety of positions over the years. And at the time that the North American Waterfowl Management Plan concept was being developed, I was the Regional Director for the Service in Minneapolis, for Region 3, or the Great Lakes Region. And having had much early involvement in the early preparation of the Plan, when the North American Waterfowl Plan was signed in 1986, I was asked by the Director to serve as their first Director of that Plan. And so I did that. We start[ed] the initial program in Minneapolis, and then later, when the North American Wetlands Conservation Act was passed in 1989, we moved that office to Arlington, Virginia, to be in the Washington scene. And I stayed with the program, as I had agreed to do, the first five years, from 1987 to ‘92, and then I retired. I’ve been retired from Fish & Wildlife Service for the past 13 years or so.

John Cornely – David?

David Sharp – My name is Dave Sharp and I was hired in June of 1988 and worked until June of 1990. [I] worked in Minneapolis as part of the US Office there. I was hired as a population specialist, and my background was such that I came directly from the office of Migratory Bird Management in Laurel, Maryland, to Minneapolis. And one of the major things I was able to bring to the Office was the linkage of the Plan to the databases that we had nationally, so that we could continue to track the goals, the population objectives, that were set in the North American Plan, but then use the databases that we had in Laurel, and that we were collecting continentally, for waterfowl populations -- to track their status. And while I was in Minneapolis, one of the things I worked on was the Continental Evaluation Team and beginning to set up the science parts of the Plan, in terms of tracking population objectives.

John Cornely – Okay. Thanks. Bob?

Bob Streeter – Well, Harvey asked me to come and help him out in the spring, I think it was about February / March of 1988. I had been in research for in the Fish & Wildlife Service for about 15 /16 years prior to that, and had the opportunity to help start two new offices in research. And then I helped Harvey with a … initiate a program on the Mississippi River, just as a detail. And so he thought I might have some skills in helping organize, and get from the central office, and help in the Joint Ventures. And also one of my assignments when I came in was communications. They said that one of the complaints that the people out in the Joint Ventures had, and the US members of the Plan committee was, they wanted to know what was going on across the North American. And so communication was a big part of that. I think a lot of it too, was helping Harvey be a cheerleader. And Dave and Carl did a lot

2

of traveling. That we tried to get to all the Joint Venture meetings, support them in whatever way we could. Sometimes you’d get involved where they didn’t want us, but our job was to help support them from a national perspective, argue a little bit for money, represent the Plan program from a national perspective at various Fish & Wildlife Service meetings, etcetera, etcetera. We also started the US Implementation Board, and gave support to that group. That was non-government entities that helped argue for funding, and help implement the Plan. In about 1990, the North American Wetlands Conservation Act was to be implemented; it was passed in December of ’89. And I was moved to Washington to implement that program. And then start the Office in Washington. Harvey then later came in with the North American Plan Office. And then, when Harvey retired, I was named Executive Director of the North American Plan, as well as the Coordinator of the Wetlands Act. And stayed in that position until 1995.

John Cornely – Okay. Now, we know Harvey was working on kind of precursor efforts to the North American Plan. Like to stick with you Bob, and go back around the table to the other folks and just ask when did you first hear about the Plan, and kind of … what were your initial reactions to it. Bob?

Bob Streeter – Yeah. I can remember the day a box of publications came to the office I had in Fort Collins at the time, called the Office of Information Transfer. And it was a box of North American Plan copies, and they’re being distributed around the Service as a published Plan. And we started talking about that, trying to find out what it was. We learned what research people had been involved -- particularly northern prairie. And so that was my first exposure to the North American Plan. We didn’t know what was being done operationally -- and not much was being done operationally, right when that plan was signed. But that was the first I’d heard of it -- when I actually saw a document that was … had been completed in 1986.

John Cornely – Ok. David?

David Sharp – My first recollection of the North American Plan was 1985. I was working in Laurel, Maryland, and our office had been working very strongly through the Fish & Wildlife Service, in terms of using our databases to set objectives that might be use in the North American Plan eventually. And that was my first introduction to what the Plan was, and sort of what it was all about.

John Cornely – Harvey, we kind of know that you and a colleague in the Canadian Wildlife Service kind of said ‘we need a North American Waterfowl Management Plan.’ So you were there from the very beginning. Jim, when did you first hear

3

about the Plan? Was it right at the beginning or before it started, or sometime after that?

Jim McQuag – Well, actually it was sort of in the middle of that process. At that time I was a Division Chief in the Lands Directorate of Environment Canada, and we were doing a major internal review. And I got the assignment of reviewing Jim Patterson’s office. And so I had the wonderful opportunity of sitting down and having Jim Patterson explain to me this thing called the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, which was an amazing concept at that time, and something that just blew us away. Needless to say, his office got a very high evaluation from me. But it was then about three years later when I had the opportunity to come up to the Canadian Wildlife Service as an assistant to what had been Jim’s position, and then, eventually, came to be part of it. But my reaction to the Plan was that this was brilliant; this was something really interesting. And I loved the innovation aspect of it.

John Cornely – Carl, what … when did you first hear about the North American Waterfowl Management Plan?

Carl Madsen – Well, I’m not just exactly sure. At the time I was working in a project we called the Mid-Continent Waterfowl Management Project, out of western Minnesota, which had its roots in the Migratory Bird Office. We talked about some of those plans that were drafted before. There was concern about the failing waterfowl populations from the mid-continent region, and a couple of individuals did a rather extensive report on that -- Skip Ladd and Dick Pospahala had written that thing. And there was a group of people meeting to do something … what actions needed to be taken on the ground to turn this trend around. Bottom line came out that, well, let’s go out and try something. And we quickly focused on private lands. But, at that same time, there was a National Waterfowl Management Plan. I think John Rogers was probably Migratory Bird Chief then, I talked to him a number of times about a National Waterfowl Management Plan, which had a higher level than me. When you get to Harvey’s level, and up there, that’s where they start to put it together. And I first saw it then -- when the first publication was out. And of course we heard the signing that had happened there and in 1986 and thought well this is great. And then saw the details as the reports came out later. So, I think early on, there was … it had a genesis that was not just one thing that happened. There were a number of steps that came over from that.

John Cornely – Thanks. What I’d like now is for, first Harvey, and then Jim, to talk a little bit about the organization, and the formation of the Offices. First, Harvey, talk a little bit about the organizational structure of the US Office, and maybe a little bit of how you went about to identify the staff that you acquired there in Minneapolis.

4

Harvey Nelson – Well, once the Plan had been signed, and before the Offices -- both the Canadian and US Offices -- were established, we had a lot of discussion between the agencies as to what should be done and how we should organize the main operations of those Offices at the national level. And out of all of that, you know, came several different suggestions. But on the US side, we felt, first of all, we needed to identify the three / four principle components of the program, and then structure the office initially with specialists in those areas to help with the implementation process, and also the continued communications and contact process, with all the partners involved, as it expanded. So, at that stage, we said the number one component of this Plan is habitat. So we need a habitat specialist. We need to also, at the same time, reassess the population goals of … that the Migratory Bird Office had worked with, that the Flyway Councils had worked with in [the] US, and have a population specialist. And then, thirdly, we needed someone to kind of serve as the contact person for all these different cooperative efforts -- other than myself or whoever else would be available. And then we quickly reached the point that the demands for travel and attendance at meeting became so great, and also in the continued planning process, and I needed somebody else to help me directly, so we established a Deputy’s job that Bob Streeter came into. As most of you know, then Carl Madsen came in as a habitat specialist; Dave Sharp, [on] my left, as the population specialist. And then we had an administrative staff, very minimal staff, to do … to take care of the office requirements for the program, at that stage. Sharon Amenson was our administrative assistant, who had been in the Regional Office in Minneapolis a number of years and I knew of her capabilities. Liz Forchez came in, came on board as one of the secretaries; other people that we knew from the Region. And we added a few other people, but the whole idea was that we needed to develop a small, capable staff. And it never did get very large in that respect. But the main thing was that we had to get out there and get this Plan on the road and be able to support it and promote it, both from a philosophical standpoint, from a cooperators standpoint, and then the major issue became the funding standpoint. So, we started with a relatively small but capable group of people that were known around the waterfowl circles, for the most part. And that’s sort of how we developed, the initial staff. [We] had to be flexible, as the program expanded, then you’d need more specialists in given areas.

John Cornely – Okay, thanks, Harvey. Jim, how … what was your experience in Canada? Was it similar or were you organized a little differently?

Jim McQuag – It was actually quite different, inasmuch as the Canadian Wildlife Service had undergone some major cuts in 1981, where much of the habitat program itself had been sort of decimated, and there was very

5

little of that left. And as the North American Plan developed, it became the major habitat initiative of the Wildlife Service. And so the Habitat branch became the focus for that effort within the Canadian Wildlife Service. And when I became the Director of Habitat, it was the most important, and by far the largest program, not only in Habitat, but in the Canadian Wildlife Service at the time. We didn’t specialize at all within the office in Ottawa on habitat itself, the science of it, or the population. That work was done by the Migratory Birds branch, which we worked with fairly closely, but wasn’t within our office. So our focus was more on the coordination and the liaison within Canada, and the coordination and liaison between Canada and the United States. And that was the major role. And similar to the Office in Minneapolis, and later in Washington, there was also a very strong promotion role that was attached to the work that we were doing. And in that sense, we developed and worked on communications, and the development of things like Waterfowl 2000, and the other communication vehicles and documents, to explain the Plan. And out of that also grew our tracking program -- the program to track the actions so we had something to report. Those were all roles there. In terms of staff, our first Communications Coordinator was Illie Carack, and she came in and she initiated a lot of the programs, long and very close coordination with Harvey’s office. And also we brought in Danelle Tebo. And Danelle came to us from Agricultural Canada, and she was sort of in the position that Bob was with respect to Harvey in the original. And she was supporting the work that I was doing and looking after various aspects of it. But the office never really grew much beyond two or three people, in terms of responsibility for the North American Plan. And as I said, the first, and primary, goal of that was coordinating within Canada and coordinating between US and Canada, and then later with Mexico.

John Cornely – We know, now, you know, 20 years later, that much of the implementation of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in the US and Canada was done through individual partnerships called ‘Joint Ventures.’ Where did that concept come from? We’ll start with Harvey. You know, many of us had been working in conservation, in federal agencies, for some time up to that point, and we weren’t really familiar with that concept. Could you enlighten us a little bit on where that came from and how it came to be applied to habitat.

Harvey Nelson – Well, to back up just a little bit then, perhaps. Most of you are aware that during this earlier period, prior to the North American concept coming onboard, we in each country -- US and Canada -- we had developed national waterfowl management plans in both countries. And that was an effort to try to bring together a whole series of other prior actions dealing with, you know, habitat requirements – country wide, establishing priorities, and geographic regions of the country, and all leading to different concept plans, that the Fish & Wildlife Service and

6

the various Regions had been involved with, the Flyway Councils, had been involved with … and that all culminated in this National Waterfowl Management Plan. The idea then being to try to get some better coordination of these efforts so they weren’t being done piecemeal, but getting them all under one umbrella. And the same effort was underway in Canada, for the Canadian National Plan. And then, when the final decision was made to move forward with bringing these various planning efforts -- the national plans, other related habitat plans -- bringing them all under one umbrella, so to speak, as an international plan; that led to the decision to then establish a North American Waterfowl Management Plan. And in the implementation process of that planning effort the question then became how do we bring this down to the field level for implementation? And at various meetings we had discussions about different methods that could have been used, but I remember at a meeting that we had at Ottawa ‘bout that time between the two directors of the Canadian Wildlife Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, and some of the rest of us involved, we went through, again, the review of where these national plans stood, and the need to have … to condense that then into an overall national waterfowl management plan. And that became the North American Waterfowl Plan. And in that process, when it got to the implementation stage, how to do it, somebody said ‘well, gee, some of the other methods that we employed over the years haven’t been too successful, and there’s a lot of fragmentation, going different directions, how do we bring all that together?’ And then discussion led into ‘well, let’s look at the corporate world. Joint Ventures have been a good move on their part in many cases.’ You could cite examples of how different interests were brought together, pooled their resources and funding, and established Joint Ventures, to collectively accomplish a given set of objectives or given programs. ‘Why don’t we try that? Not really been used in government, but at this point let’s try something different.’ So, the idea of having Joint Ventures and partnerships between -- in this case -- natural resource agencies, that would be the foundation for the implementation segment of this Plan. So that’s how we got into establishing Joint Ventures and the partnerships that are needed to make it successful. And it turned out, you know, to be a very successful program. There was a lot of concern early on that this was contrary to the way we have done business in the past. A lot of reasons why it wouldn’t work. A lot of reasons that … at that stage, people were speculating about what it was going to cost to carry out the initial phase of this program. And these people would say ‘we’ll never be able to get that kind of money’ or ‘we can never get enough people to do this.’ But yet we said Joint Ventures with partnership arrangements through some kind of … and getting down to the local level on the ground, there are a lot of organizations out there that we can bring to the table. And by golly, we think this will work. So, that’s how we started in that direction.

7

John Cornely – Were there any guidelines from the corporate world, or … I mean, this concept was discussed, but then what was the next step -- to try and actually adapt this to habitat management, natural resource management, and really get down to implementation. We’ll start with you again, Harvey, and then ask others to comment.

Harvey Nelson – Well, initially we had to sell this to our own Directors, and our own governing bodies, so to speak, in both countries for that matter. And Jim Patterson and I, at that stage, and Jim had explored a lot of this type of thing at the Canadian level, and he helped me sort of determine how to assess that on the US side. And we did get some advice from some key people in national conservation organizations that had some exposure to this. We selected some, at that stage, some companies that had been successful in forming new Joint Ventures to carry out some new missions, and were being successful. And so we had a little booklet of examples to defend our position, when necessary.

John Cornely – Jim, could you comment on that.

Jim McQuag – The Joint Venture concept was one that, not only was a brilliant idea in the sense of a new way of doing business, but it actually really applied to the way, the only way, of doing business really, in a multiple jurisdictional setting. When you’re trying to form partnerships between federal governments, across international borders, states, provinces, non-government organizations, and trying to get everybody working together, what you’ve got is a whole series of organizations that have their own jurisdictions -- whether it be legal jurisdictions or jurisdictions they’ve chosen within which to work -- they’ve got their own resources; they’ve got their own staff. And therefore, they have this feeling that ‘this is what we do, and this is how we do it.’ But the timing was right. Because what happened was that everybody realized that no one -- whether it be a federal government, an organization the size of the Fish & Wildlife Service, or anything -- could do this by itself. And everybody had to come together and work in partnerships. And that became the hallmark of this. So, although you borrowed ideas from business, it actually had to be put into practice and developed, over time, within the context of international / national jurisdictions, and private / public partnerships. And this was really new stuff. And it was looked at with some askance at the beginning. People were … didn’t think this was going to work. They were very concerned that their authority was somehow going to be corrupted, or taken away from them, or they were going to be told what to do with their own people and their own resources by somebody else. And so people went in there fairly defensively. But, as it worked out, over time, everybody recognized that you could bring something to the table, and that you could share in the benefits. That you could contribute what you could, and that it became a voluntary

8

decision on your part to do so. And so therefore, a Joint Venture and a partnership, turned out to be something that people choose to be involved in, wanted to be involved in. And they saw the benefits of it. And you ended up -- the whole became greater than the sum of the parts.

John Cornely – Harvey, do you have another comment?

Harvey Nelson – Well, yeah. I’d just like to follow up. Internally, within the Fish & Wildlife Service, you know, we obviously had a number of different kinds of concerns in terms of how this new program might impact, or conflict with, ongoing efforts. And of course, the big concern was -- how would it relate to the budget process, where this money might come from. And initially, as the Joint Ventures were initiated, in the first year, the first months, so to speak, there was a lot of reprogramming of existing money within the Fish & Wildlife Service, particularly changed priorities for the work of the Reality people. It had some relationship to dollars going into other habitat programs; particularly it was a great concern within the refuge system about how it might impact their new programs that were being proposed. So we had a lot of internal concerns about how this needed to be put together, in the right way, so that there was no major impact on other existing programs, at least for any period of time. But there was a general recognition that, as this program moved forward, as the North American Plan moved forward, there needed to be new money.

David Sharp – John,

John Cornely – Dave,

David Sharp – When you think about Joint Ventures, and I’ll go back to that period of time when I came to the office in 1988, and it’s a little different twist than what I think we’re hearing from Harvey and Jim, in terms of how Joint Ventures, and how they came about, and what they looked like, I’ll go back to the biology of the bird, and talk about the annual cycle of waterfowl, and why that was important to help drive some of these partnerships, that were very unique, throughout the life cycle of the bird. In that we were dealing with ducks, geese, and swans in North America, and we had shared population goals that were set there, continentally. How to step those down, and bring those down to the ground level, the grassroots level, we looked at the annual cycle of these birds, to take care of them, not just on breeding areas, but in migration and wintering. And together, in working in all parts during the annual cycle for these birds, we could indeed help attain those continental goals. So, there was a piece of what needed to be done, at all points in waterfowls annual cycle. So we began to foster partnerships, to

9

build Joint Ventures, not just on breeding areas, but in migration and wintering areas. And together, we realized, that if we were able to do that, and cultivate those partnerships, those unique Joint Ventures, wherever they might be, we could help waterfowl throughout the annual cycle. Ultimately, attain those continental goals which, as Jim said, those were the shared criteria that we all had. So that you could be working on waterfowl in Louisiana, or you could be working in Mississippi, or you could be up on the breeding grounds, and everywhere in between, and helping us attain those continental goals. I think that was absolutely critical to building some of the partnerships that we were able to forge throughout the annual cycle of waterfowl.

?? -- Good point

John Cornely – Let’s follow up a little bit more on, at least initial funding for the Office in the US and the Office in Canada. I’m guessing that there wasn’t, you know, suddenly a brand new pot of money that suddenly appeared and fulfilled all your needs to get the Offices started. So how … we’ll start with Jim on this one, was funding diverted from existing funds, or … what was your initial funding like, and where did it come from?

Jim McQuag – In the beginning, the funding was found from within the Canadian Wildlife Service primarily. And that was in the early days of the planning for the North American Plan, and the getting of it signed. There was no additional monies that were involved there, but it was taken on as a job of the Habitat Director, Jim Patterson at the time, it was part of his work, and part of his functions, and the costs of all that was born within his budget. But as the plan then got signed, it became clear that we were not going to find the resources necessary, at the federal level, to carry out the work of coordination, or to contribute to the federal share that had been identified within the Plan. In Canada, it had been identified that we would be sharing it one-third federal, one-third provincial, and one-third private sector and non government organizations sector. And that’s sort of how the concept developed in Canada. And that required us in the federal government to go to Cabinet to get funding for the new, for the Plan, that would both, cover the costs of running an office, and the costs of the federal contribution to the individual projects in the Joint Ventures. And so, that became my responsibility, of developing Cabinet documents. Now, Jim Patterson had been there to Cabinet a couple of times, because we needed Cabinet approval to negotiate the North American Plan. We needed Cabinet approval to sign it. So when Tom McMillan, as our Minister of Environment signed there, he had Cabinet authority to put that signature on a piece of paper. And so Cabinet was aware of what we had been doing, and that had been signed, and they were very clearly expecting us to come and ask for some money. And so when we came

10

and we asked for the first installment of the funds for the North American Plan, we were successful. And that became the fundamental budget of the Plan. And that has been renewed on several occasions.

John Cornely – Harvey, can you tell us about your early funding and what you had to go through to get the Office up and running from a funding standpoint?

Harvey Nelson – Well, first of all, much of the early planning process, at least from my standpoint, was that I became involved in when I was in different positions, really, prior to that, all of that work was funded by existing programs. And maybe not a lot of money was moved around, necessarily. I know that the Migratory Bird Management Office played a strong role, initially, in helping to provide the information and sort of get … help get organized. And they did have some increases in their budget specifically for that. I don’t remember what the amount was … wasn’t a whole lot. And then, when they reached the point that we were ready to establish the US office, the Director at that stage set up a special fund to kick that off -- and I think it was a half a million dollars or something of that magnitude, to get started. And then, at the same time, budgeting for the North American Plan Office was put into the regular budget cycle. So from this first … after the first year, there began to be direct funding for the Office. And then the Regions, each Region that was involved with the early Joint Ventures, also had new budget … new funds budgeted for that purpose. And, I think, as each Joint Venture then, you know, came into being and Implementation Boards were established, or the Joint Venture Management Boards were established, as they began to pool sources of funding, then there became other, you know, other monies available to augment the initial funding base. And from that point on, of course, then there was an increased effort to get an annual appropriation, you know, for the North American Plan implementation. And, of course, then when the North American Wetlands Conservation Act was passed, that provided, you know, further incentive, and further funding, for that purpose, as well habitat.

John Cornely – Like to spend some time with Carl and Dave and Bob here, and talk about … now we’ve got … this plan is signed, and we’ve got at least some funding, and got Offices developed, and the Joint Venture concept has been developed, and at least you have some examples on how corporations and other partnerships have developed. Carl, what were your interactions like with some of the individual Joint Ventures as a habitat specialist? And what kind of things were you involved with to try and help these folks get going, get habitat conservation on the ground?

Carl Madsen – Well, I don’t think there was any of the Joint Ventures that had an easy birth. There was hard work put in by the people on the ground -- state people, DU, Fish & Wildlife Service people, other federal agencies -- all the partners out there. And many cases private

11

organizations, private money, came in. As a habitat coordinator, I felt sometimes a little overwhelmed at this. And, for those of you who might know me, know my organizational skills aren’t my strong point. And I was faced with, as an example, putting together an outline of a Joint Venture plan for the Gulf Coast, for example – [a] Region I had never worked in. Central Valley of California, Lower Mississippi Valley, the Prairies -- I felt pretty comfortable with. But in drawing out people from there, they put things in and try to say, ‘okay, this a rough outline, and put it in.’ And I remember, probably the first one that came in, in really nice form, was the Central Valley. Remember when Dave Paullen was down there … it was in before Dave Paullen even, but …

[undecipherable]

… that … a group in California, really came in with a, really nice Joint Venture plan. And in one sense, it was a simple plan, ‘cause there was only one state involved, as opposed to the Atlantic Coast where all of these thirteen original Colonies, as Dick Dyer would put it, each with their agenda. So you had that level of expectations and input, that you need to focus down, and get down to things that are doable. And then as we got down to individuals, it took a while before we got over this, ‘okay, we’re having this Joint Venture here,’ I might be a Refuge Manager, for example, in one of these Joint Ventures. I’ve already got my plate full; my budget is spent right up to the max. I’ve got all kinds of things to do. And now this is coming on. What’s more, there’s still … so that aspect of it was a selling job, to get people to buy into the larger picture of accepting that this plan will actually be strengthening this property, if we got it. We had things in mind, to buy new property. And I … then we went to the ‘Flagships.’ I say ‘okay, we need to do something, soon, in each one. Let’s get something up and going that we can point to.’ And I recall the Ace Basin was a nice project, largely acquisitioned, there came some very nice private money in there, and there was … it got to be a very noticeable project. I don’t know if I can even remember all of them; the Lake Thompson Watershed Project in the Prairie Pothole region; but each group, out in the field, had selected their “Flagship Projects” to put forth. And everyone could kind of cut their teeth on those, and … it kind of grew as people bought into it and when NAWCA came and there was some more funding, things looked a little different. Remember, when the plan was signed, and even in ’88, there was what … they … a billion dollar budget, in the next 12 years or something, no one had ever seen in waterfowl management before. And … but, as all the pieces started to come together, when Ducks Unlimited bought into it with their considerable resources, and NAWCA came, and the states came up to bat, some private monies came in, I think we far exceeded that billion dollars by the year 2000. That’s 12 years later. And so, a lot of good things came in as each of these plans came to fruition. And I think the

12

successes of them speaks for itself, because other Regions wanted to have a Joint Venture after they saw these came in. And I think that’s the good thing that … ‘hey it worked here, and we want one in our area here.’ So, I think all of us that were working in the early days felt good about that

John Cornely – Dave, talk about your role as a population specialist, kind of related to what Carl was doing, and go back in, you know, we … in both countries we ended up with these initial Joint Ventures. And I’m assuming they were based on some of these previous plans and concepts that were developed. But, you know, comment … you and anyone else on the panel, how did we decide where to start? What geographic areas to start in? And give us a little bit of flavor of what you were doing to try and help get these things going.

David Sharp – The initial priorities, and where we were working with in each Joint Venture, there were a lot of planning efforts that were going on, from a habitat standpoint, in both countries, leading up to the signing of the North American, and then even with the initial steps that we were making in the field. So, I wouldn’t say that the Plan was the one that actually drove the first priorities that we were doing. There was already plans in place that were going to help us get there. I think what the initial feelings were, was we needed to get out there and turn some dirt. We needed to get on the land to begin to show where we could actually bring this plan to face in many different areas of North American, and to tackle quote the habitat problem that waterfowl was having. So, the priorities, John, I don’t think were … we had more than enough work to do. It was just a matter of picking out key projects in many different areas. And we did that. Carl talked about the “Flagship Projects” and then the “First Step Projects,” in Canada. We were also recognizing the importance of recruitment for ducks; trying to emphasis that in the Plan. And so we were going at the heart of the issue in many of those production areas. Because that was a priority that we felt was important. I think to put this in perspective from a population standpoint, and this is … I think will help drive our future, and at that point the habitat efforts that were going on the ground level, in dealing with ducks, geese, and swans we had Flyway Management Plans that set objectives that were first set up in 1982. The Plan fully embraced those efforts of the flyways to pull those objectives together for geese and swans. Ducks were tougher -- because we did not have population surveys, other than the ten principle species, from which to set goals. so the original drafters of the Plan were somewhat intuitive, in that they used our survey database for the ten principle species, and then they done some guesswork – interpolation - in terms of what kinds of effort was outside the quote traditional surveyed area, and we had a fall flight objective of a hundred million ducks, in very general ways. That fall flight objective was based upon the kind of estimates we thought

13

occurred during the decade of the 1970s. The reason that’s important is because that’s the period of time that was good for waterfowl. We did have some drought during the 70s. We also had some very good years. but here’s what important from a population standpoint, we had enough waterfowl to meet the needs of people of North America -- from not just a hunting standpoint -- but from a viewing standpoint, from the standpoint of recreational demands, that were set on the species. So it was a very good time for waterfowl. And those were our objectives -- the decades of the 1970s. Now what we needed to do, from a population standpoint, is begin to translate these objectives into what we needed to do from a habitat standpoint to meet those objectives. First of all, and foremost, tackling the recruitment problem that we were having with ducks on the prairies. If you think about 1985, and think about regulations for ducks, that was the first round of restrictions that we put in place after a stabilized regulations period where we kept regulations very stable. So we had gone through a first set of restrictions. And in 1988 was the… really the low point of waterfowl. That was after the signing of the Plan; the prairies were in the worst shape that they had been in; we’d really reached a low point. And that was the phase of the second round of restrictions for waterfowl. In working with the Flyway Councils, and the states, enough was enough. And that little … that, I think, was a signal to people that we really did have to make this North American Plan work. So, there was … it was the coming together -- from the habitat priorities that were put in place, trying to get those Joint Ventures on the ground, and now trying to figure out what waterfowl needed in an annual cycle to meet those demands. So dealing with the recruitment aspects, we began to work with each Joint Venture, at every level, to look at what we needed to do for waterfowl to bring them through the annual cycle. To try to do that, we went back to the decade of the 1970s to look at the distribution of waterfowl that we had. And when you look at our winter surveys, and looked at how those complemented what was going on in the breeding grounds, we had a better understanding of the number of waterfowl in various portions of the continent, and what we needed to take care of in the winter, to bring those birds back through a successful migration period, and ultimately, back in to the breeding grounds, in condition good enough to breed and raise young. Then we would tackle the recruitment problems on the breeding grounds so they could produce young. If you fit all that together, that was what was driving what we were doing. The problems that Carl and I had, back in Minneapolis, in those days, first of all – tracking, one by one, those acres, and what we were doing on the land, and Carl was working on that, and then -- what did those acres do for waterfowl. What were we gaining? What was happening on a continental scale, in terms of, what was the benefits, whether it be recruitment, whether it be the enhancement of wintering foods, and so on? So we had to begin to piece that together. And those were the initial seeds of the development of the Continental Evaluation

14

Team, which in 1989, we struck, with all of our partners -- Canadian Wildlife Service, US Fish & Wildlife Service, and Joint Ventures -- to try to pull together the best science that we could, to try to tackle that question for those acres of habitat that we were working with out there. What were we getting from them, in terms of waterfowl? And response of waterfowl to those actions on the land? So, it was a complicated time for us. And Carl and I were doing the best we could to try to fit those pieces together. But this is where the population and the habitat, so important, as Harvey talked about in the initial formation of the Plan, and the in setting up the Offices, that was our role, and that’s what we were working with, in those early steps. There was no cookbook. It was very difficult, Joint Venture by Joint Venture, to bring these two aspects together.

John Cornely – Carl.

Carl Madsen – Well, you know, as we got into these issues, from my experience on the prairies, it was all about wetlands -- of restoration, of protection, of enhancement, and the associated uplands -- the grasslands. And, when we got to the east coast, it might be something different. it was still tied to wetland, but the forces that were at work there are much different than they are in other parts of the country. For example, we had Mosquito Control Districts, why I learned more about mosquito control and marsh management than I ever thought I would need to. But that was the issue. That was a factor in the degradation of marshes there. In addition to development of all kinds -- housing developments, industrial developments, pollution. All kinds of issues that are on the Atlantic Coast. and when you got down to the Mississippi Valley and the Gulf Coast, and you look at issues like subsidence down there, and wetland loss from the ocean moving in -- these are things that … how do you even get around these? And as times … gone … But the people down there know a little bit about that. And the clearing, and the farming of the Mississippi Valley -- the people working there had a pretty good handle on much of that. So, I’m drawing from all those partners. You start to get pieces together of -- what to do where, on these Joint Ventures. Couldn’t have been done from the top down out of Minneapolis or Washington or any place else. This was something that needed to come from the ground up. I don’t think there’s any one person that knows all the answers for the whole country. It was a humbling experience for me, you know.

John Cornely – Do you have a follow up comment Jim?

Jim McQuag – Yeah. I wanted to say that not only has the JVs taken advantage of opportunities that were in the works already and looking for things that would have the bang for the dollar and produce some results

15

fairly quickly on all aspects of the breeding cycle and the cycle of the waterfowl, but there was also some important changes -- particularly on the Canadian prairies -- where the realization was there that you weren’t going to accomplish anything in trying to go about acquiring the land, or setting that land aside, or protecting it through some kind of regulation or acquisition. And that what you had to do was you had to get working with land owners. You had to actually recruit the land owners into the program in such a way that the task was accomplished on a broad landscape approach, as opposed to a point acquisition. The fact was, on the Canadian prairies, that acquisition wasn’t going to work. The North American Plan had been announced and the first thing that you heard from the farmers was ‘uh-oh, you guys coming around trying to buy our land? Well, if you are, forget it.’ And we said ‘no, that’s not what we’re trying to do here at all.’ And so, at the same time as we were trying to get on the ground, we were also changing the way of doing business, and doing business with / in partnerships. We learned to do it with ourselves within jurisdictions. But then we learned to do it with the land owners. And so the land owners became partner with us. And that was a major change that took place at the same time. And I think that that’s the key to the success of the North American Plan in Canada -- has been that it’s something that … we haven’t tried to buy it.

John Cornely – Bob, can you comment some on communications challenges and some of your role in the Office of Communications. And I know from working with all of you folks for a lot of years, especially back in those early days, Harvey, you, Dave, and Carl, spent an awful lot of time in airplanes. And comment … I think, you know, people saw you come and go. I don’t think they realized that you were coming and going all the time, because they just saw you when you came to their state. And comment on some of the initial communications and, you know, Dr. Sharps Snake Oil Medicine Sales, and some of those sorts of aspects.

Bob Streeter – Yeah. There’s a lot of things been going through my mind as I’ve listened to Carl and Dave and Jim and Harvey talk about things, and I will address communications. one of the first things we did was we were … found a … very fortunate to find a talented young woman who was a writer, her name was Katherine Holman, and we were able to hire here under a contract to help put together the first communications product which was Waterfowl 2000 …

End of Tape 1, Side A

Begin Tape 1, Side B -- no loss in continuity

16

… a plain black and white document that has now morphed, over the years, into something called Birdscapes, which is a very beautiful magazine that talks about the migratory bird partnerships ongoing in Canada and the US. But, at that time, it was basically just a four or five pager that talked about what was happening with the North American Plan, primarily in the US when it started out. Examples of what was happening in a Joint Venture. What was working well one place, we’d pass that on to somebody else. If the Plan Committee, met there was a little report of the Plan Committee and what it was doing. Just any kind of action that was ongoing, we wanted to make sure all the partners were aware. And so that was a very rudimentary communications product. there had been developed, I think Dave and Carl were both involved, and Harvey, in developing a slide show that was being used in … as we traveled around the two things you needed to have was … come back to Minneapolis, you’d grab a slide show and clean underwear, and head off onto another trip. In fact, I think somebody told me that Harvey’s wife, Jean, always met him at the airport so he didn’t even have to go home. She’d just have another suitcase for him, and he’d head on to another trip. As we traveled though, there were many places, or things, we went to -- we were promoting it in every venue we could. At Regional meetings, within the Fish & Wildlife Service, at the Joint Ventures, we would go and promote the importance of this Plan nationally. At International Association meetings, Wildlife Society meetings, etcetera, etcetera; anything that … where you could promote the North American Plan, one of us would try to be there and tell the story. But what was really happening, with each of the Joint Ventures, the first six particularly, they were trying to get things going at each of those Joint Ventures. And they might have a … Joint Venture Coordinators might have a problem or an issue, and they say ‘yeah, we need some guidance on this.’ So, we’d put our heads together and try to come up with a guidance document that … one Joint Venture had the issue, but we could share that information with another. And it … one of those things eventually became the tracking directions, or Directive, if you will, for tracking, and for tying the populations, etcetera. But we worked with the Joint Venture Coordinators to try to help them have some kind of direction. Some times a Joint Venture Coordinator needed protection from the Regional Director, because the Regional Director wanted them to do something else, and they needed to have directions from the North American Office, which was seen as, maybe, more than it really was at the time. We were evolving as an Office and Directives, just as the Joint Ventures were evolving. So, they were kind of a parallel evolution, I think, I would say. So communications took many forms. It was promotion. It was keeping everyone on the same page. And there was another important communications aspect and that was trying to communicate back with the … with Congress and the staffers that worked for the Congressional Appropriations Committees. Flagship

17

Projects were very important in that. not only did we try to get money into the annual cycles to support the Joint Ventures -- for Joint Venture Coordinators -- and little by little we got new money added there, but never enough, but we tried to get money back to the Regions, in other programs, would save to the refuge program, where they could put more money into Lake Thompson Project, that would match what the states were putting in. and so that was another important communications process. Throughout ‘88 and ‘89 calendar years, and fiscal years, we did what we could to try to get new monies come in. But the outside partners came through with the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, which was signed in ’89. And largely developed with just a few people that were a great help. And I think we talked about that in the last session, as to who those people were, but the real money started coming through in the Fiscal Year ‘91 budget. We started the North American Act process in the end of Fiscal Year ’90. we were ready with projects on the ground, the Joint Venture Coordinators helped bring in from partners, and we were ready with … to allocate, I think about seven and a half million dollars in the fall of 1990, which was fiscal … beginning of fiscal year, that first month of the fiscal year, in ’91 we were able to get that money out. And communications continued then, as to what this money was doing, what it was accomplishing. And so we developed even a ‘hands on’ communications method. With the help of TNC primarily, and Ducks Unlimited, we would put field trips together on weekends, where we’d invite Congressional staffers on a weekend, where they paid their own way. They paid for their food. They got their own transportation. But they got an organized canoe ride, bird watching, and wetlands learning experience on Saturdays and Sundays, a few times. And that communications process sold itself, as they went back to the appropriations committees and authorizing committees, they became believers in the North American Plan. And so it really seemed to me as we went on, all of us trying to promote the Plan, it was being promoted by everybody that got a view of it. The North American Plan became something that was easy to support, and easy to proselytize for, because you could see so much happening on the ground, so much enthusiasm that the Joint Venture Coordinators were getting from their partners. So, you talk about communications, and it wasn’t a bureaucratic, cookie cutter type of thing. But it was it trying to make sure that all the partners knew what was going on, and that they had a role, that they were going to benefit from what they were putting into it also. And everybody on our Office, and in Canadian Office, did some communications, of one type or another. But I think it really did help bring things together, to make sure everyone … whatever we did, to make sure all the partners knew what was going on.

John Cornely – There’s a couple of things that I’d like to follow up on. And one you hit on, Bob, that I don’t think we’ve talked that much about in our previous session,

18

and I’d like to start some more discussions, and maybe carry them on through this week, but, talk a little bit, you and Harvey, about the Mitchell Bill, and the Wetland Act. And … I mean, was that planned early on, or just … how did that very important legislation come about, that’s provided tremendous amount of funding for projects inside Joint Venture boundaries, and outside as well.

Harvey Nelson – Well, I can start, based on what I recall. At that time, like from say ‘87 on, we knew we had to get habitat funds into the regular appropriations cycle. so there was an initial effort to, you know, to include that in the Fish & Wildlife Service annual budget process. But like everything else, the first year that that was tried the big question was ‘well, how is this different from other things you’re doing? How does it relate to your regular land acquisition program? How does it relate to the refuge program or other things that are also high priority?’ So it -- the Service -- Directorate level people and budget people -- you know, had to very carefully structure their dialog with the Appropriation Committee staff, in terms of: what was new here, what was different about this. So, as that understanding improved, increased, and as Bob alluded, a lot of the principle staff people in the senators and representatives offices that were on the different appropriation committees, as their understand increased, and their support increased, it was a better opportunity then for them to say to their principle people and committee members that this is a new important program, and we need to give it all the support we can. And so that’s sort of how the initial interest and support level was developed and grew. And then the next step was getting the key Appropriation Chairmen, on the House and Senate side, and the Budget Committees, to really become strong supporters. And maybe Bob can take it from there. You knew some of those people and how we worked with them, and how our US Implementation Board folks also came into play. Because, that’s the arena that they were used to operating in. And so we did have some really key senators and congressmen at that stage, that became strong supporters of the North American, and carried a lot of weight.

Bob Streeter – Like any program that’s really successful a lot of people would like to claim to be the father or the mother of the program. And there were many. it wasn’t just one person. But there were some key people. Bob Davidson who was a … he came from the prairies. at one time. He understood South Dakota. He understood biologically -- he had a PhD -- understood biologically what was going on. He was on Senator Mitchell’s staff. And I’m not sure exactly how the ideas got structured, but he was involved in it. I know Ducks Unlimited had an educator by the name of John Smolko who worked for them. Chip Collins,who was with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and many others. They talked. Talked behind the scenes. And … but Bob Davidson was actually the, I think, the main penman, for writing North

19

American Wetlands Conservation Act. And I think it started about … the actual writing, they started putting the bill together about in June, and it passed in December, if my recollection is clear. And there were a lot of things included in there. I was mentioning to Seth Mott that I see the North American Act as actually the authorizing legislation for the North American Plan. Because the Plan never had any Congressional blessing, other than appropriations. But here’s an authorizing bill for the Wetlands Conservation Act that specified that the North American Plan, the money would be going to meet the Plan, and other type plans. And it did specify that the North American Plan would be updated every five years. So there was directives in that to basically give some structure to continuing to change, or modify, the North American Plan as it needed to be. I’m sure there are other people that reviewed it. People in the International Association, maybe some state people got involved, but it moved relatively fast without … I don’t think we had a lot to do with it from our office. We did see a copy at one time, when it was being developed. But, from my recollections, maybe Harvey had us traveling so much we didn’t have time, but … it all of a sudden it was a done deal. And the final Act was passed and signed by the President in December of ‘89. And then we moved fairly quickly to implement it. Harvey.

Harvey Nelson – Well, again, the US Implementation Board members played a very strong role in this. And, you know Bob Davidson certainly was a key person. Senator Mitchell was a very key member. But within their own way of doing business, they quickly brought the other support groups into that coalition, and all of a sudden, you had a piece of action that they went with.

Bob Streeter – Yep. Good point. I’m glad you brought that up. The US Implementation Board was, as Harvey said earlier, was a 14 members, NGOs -- non government organizations. It was headed up by Matt Conley to start with, Larry Youn of the Wildlife Management Institute, and National Audubon, and Isaac Walton, and Fish and Wildlife Foundation …

Harvey Nelson – Soil Conservation Districts.

Bob Streeter – Yep. American Forestry Association. I think, maybe, there were 14 organizations that was there. And these … the people that were at the table, were the … basically the Executive Director, the President, the Chair; they were the higher level people in those national organizations. Very savvy. And they brought a lot of power to bear, also with the Joint Venture … the Flagship Projects, when we tried to get money -- they would lobby actively for the Service budgets that we would bring in. We got additional - approximately sixty million dollars - into

20

the Forest Service budget for wildlife in fiscal year, I think it was the ‘90 budget. Little bit of extra money into the …

Harvey Nelson – Taking Wing Program.

Bob Streeter – Taking Wing … the Bureau of Indian Affairs. and so this organization, early on … and the first few years of the North American Plan were very effective because they knew … they were well connected into all the appropriations and authorizing committees also. And so, they were then, the people that talked behind the scenes, and often reviewed things, such as the legislation then.

Harvey Nelson – There are two other key people that played a very strong role. Of course, one was Max Peterson, that was the Executive Director for the International Association, and a former Chief of the Forest Service. And then Gary Meyers, the Director for Tennessee, devoted much of his career, at that stage, and still is, spending a lot of time supporting the North American program and other related activities. Key folks.

David Sharp – I think also there was a matter of timing. I think it was … many of the cards were laid out in the proper fashion, at the right time, and things just sort of came together. If you look at where waterfowl were at, they were at extremely low point [in] 1988. It was really a time when the plight of waterfowl was on peoples minds. We had this thing called the North American Plan. It had … it was innovative. It had a hope of being successful. I think people, at that point, there was clearly … and our Congress heard it, I think the people were ready to do something … of the United States, in terms of addressing some of the problems for waterfowl. There was an opportunity to do it - internationally, with Canada as a partner. And so, I think it was a matter of timing. And I think it did go fast. I think it was … the words came very quickly, and got put on paper. But it became legislation that wouldn’t be quick. It would be a long term piece of legislation, that would help us implement this Plan, not just today, but down the road in the future. And I really do think timing was very, very important at that time.

John Cornely – Jim.

Jim McQuag – Yeah. I think it’s really important to note a couple of the … one of the major, unique aspects of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act … Canada, of course, during the process of that Act development, was in support. And we did what we could to be in Washington, to bring the Canadian presence. Because the Act, as it was designed, had a clause in there which was unique. And that clause was

21

that 50% of … 50 cents of every dollar appropriated was to go to Canada or Mexico. To make it truly North American. And that is, as far as I know, still a unique aspect in any American law. That requires such a sending of money in another direction. So Canada, of course, was obviously going to support that kind of a thing. But I do remember, on one of these tours, where we were taking Congressional and Administrative staff around and showing them places in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and we ended up at the Audubon refuge in North Dakota. And one of the ladies from the Secretary of the Interiors Office was bent on getting rid of that clause, that 50% clause. And she corned me at one point and asked what Canada’s reaction would be to the removal of the 50% clause. And I can recall it being the very first time I ever stood up on my hind legs and spoke for the country. And I said - if that happened Canada would withdraw its support from the bill. And her eyes went big and round, and we never heard about it again.

John Cornely – We’re nearing the end of our time here. I’d like to just cover one more area here and that is -- talk a little bit about the North American Plan Committee, and maybe the interactions and relationship between the Plan Committee and the two Offices. Who were some of the original people on the Plan Committee and what was their role compared to the role of the Offices? Start, Harvey, with you.

Harvey Nelson – Well the Plan Committee was one of the provisions of the original Plan, and they were to be the, sort of, you know, guiding / administrative group, with oversight of the program in general. And it prescribed the membership -- on the US side each Flyway Council was to have a spokesman - a spokesperson - and other organizations that were involved. But the key issue, initially, was that that was the governing body, so to speak, and they were to sort of pass judgment on the scope of the program as it was in the very beginning, and changes that were recommended, and any expansion in the program -- subsequently addition of new Joint Ventures in both countries, and all that type of thing. But then after the first two or three years, other issues started to come to the surface, in terms of, like, ‘well, how do we know what is being accomplished? Is there an evaluation team out there, effective? Are we sure that we’re using you know the best scientific approaches in this program?’ Lot of questions about ‘how do we know these things are happening, are we getting the annual reports out to our partners and the pubic in general.’ And we’ve already talked about some of that. So, the Plan Committee was, I thought, a very important element of the overall process. And I think there were difficulties in terms of how they were organized; how frequently they were able to meet; how much time they could devote to this exercise. And of course, each country, each of us, as a Plan Director, you know, had a responsibility at those meetings, initially too. I think they fulfilled an important role -- to keep the

22

program on even keel, and there was that body to go to for resolution of issues, or conflicts, or whatever might develop. But I think, very quickly, it took on a much greater proportion in terms of time and funding from the people that are represented outside of the state and federal organizations. So it changed. It started to change quite rapidly. And of course, by the time I retired, a number of other, you know, new things happened. But the Plan Committee is still a very important segment of this whole operation, even today. But those of you that are involved, currently, can speak to that better than me, now.

John Cornely – Jim, do you have a response to that?

Jim McQuag – Yeah. Yeah, I agree very much with Harvey, in terms of the role of the Plan Committee as it changed over time. It was very important in the Canadian context to be sure that the membership on that Committee was representative of, not only the action that was taking place on the ground there, but also of the various jurisdictions and the provinces. And it was very important. And the appointments to that Committee were technically made by the Director of the Canadian Wildlife Service -- Director General, but the actual appointments were made out of the Joint Ventures themselves. And that helped a lot, because the people then that participated there -- Hugh Hunt and various others that came -- were basically appointed by their own organizations. And not just by their own organization -- like the government of Saskatchewan in Hugh’s case. But by the Joint Venture. So the Joint Venture -- the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture -- had a representative there. And there was that liaison. So it preformed a very, very important function. But it wasn’t so much a function of ‘command and control.’ It was a little bit of an oversight -- sort of … just sort of the grandfather sort of role. And so, there was not a lot of ‘orders’ being issued by the Plan Committee. But, nor were there people trying to go and do things outside the scope of the Plan Committee either. So it took a very balanced position and balanced role. And I believe it probably continues to do that kind of thing. One could argue that you might have been able to do it without them. And one could argue that they were absolutely key and vital. And, that, I think is a good thing -- that you can make that kind of a balanced argument and discussion about it.

David Sharp – Now I think, early on, the Plan Committee itself was much more important, in that early phase, before the Joint Venture were sort of up and operational, because they were the Plan. They were … they had a responsibility to shepherd, to take care of that Plan and put in place. And Harvey talked about the evolution. As the Joint Ventures got up and running, the role of the Committee itself probably was diminished a little bit. But in order to shepherd, and take care of the Plan, they had, and continue to be, the group to bring it through its

23

revisions. And, as you all recall, from 1986 to the time that the Act was signed, there was an evolution going on in terms of how this Plan fit with other migratory bird efforts in North American. Realizing that this North American Waterfowl Management Plan had to mesh with other migratory bird efforts that were out there. and the Plan Committee, I think, was very important to … with their original responsibility to shepherd the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, in a way, and position it, so it continued to function with other migratory bird efforts that were underway, for other birds, and to really have an integrated approach for waterfowl in the future coming up down the road. I don’t think that … I’m one of those that believes that the Plan Committee itself was had a vital role, and I believe it’s still vital as we go down the road. Partly because of what Harvey said, in terms of making sure that the Plan is still based on the best science that we have, and that we are still meeting the needs of waterfowl. But all of that is fit together in our overall migratory bird efforts that we have for the rest of the 860 species of migratory birds that are out there. And waterfowl are an important part of that. The Plan Committee has a tough job, still, coming up, to insure that that happens. So, I believe they had a very vital role in terms of where we’re at today.

Bob Streeter – To add to that a bit. You know, the Plan Committee had more important things to do early on than latter, but it’s important to have, at least the illusion, that there’s an international body that’s overseeing things. But it also had a real role in contact back with the states. Each of the Flyways in the United States felt like they really were involved in this because they had their representative on that Plan Committee. I think from a Joint Venture perspective, there was a lot of frustration, because there was not great leadership, or great direction, or actions that were taken on by this body. But they blessed things. They provided the communication back to their Joint Ventures. The communication again. So, that … it served a very important role, although frustrating from [the point of view of] people who want to implement things.

John Cornely – We are about to finish our time here Harvey. I’d entertain one last closing comment from you.

Harvey Nelson – Well, I think also, in terms of the Plan Committee, early on, as many of you know, there were frequent efforts made to consider changing the name from the North American Waterfowl Management Plan to the North American Wetlands Plan. And even today, I think that still continues to rise in certain circles. But the Plan Committee was adamant in that we’re not changing this name, because these two functions go together. That’s why it’s the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. And also, some concerns early on, and probably yet

24

today, about the real scope of the Joint Ventures. And the Joint Venture part of the program is a real evolution, as it moved from five or six initial Joint Ventures to 22-some today, and boy, I’ll tell ya, my hat’s off to the Joint Venture Coordinators, ‘cause they’re the people on the ground, in the field, that got this thing organized and helped make it work.

Jim McQuag – Yeah, I’d just like to make one final comment, from our point of view, and that is that I think the hallmark of all this administrative structure that we’ve been talking about, and the proof that it has been effective, has been the number of people that have come to me, and to many of us, and said: how can we replicate that experience of the North American Waterfowl Plan for other kinds of birds -- for shore birds; how can we do it for migratory passerines; basically, how can we duplicate that experience; how can we take that; how can we put it in place. And, I’m asked that all the time. And I really like being asked that, because what it really means is that we’ve done something pretty important and pretty well, and that when other people want to mimic it that’s a … what do they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

John Cornely – I think we’ll end it there today. Thank you all very much for your time, and this will make an important contribution to recording the history of what many say is the most successful conservation initiative in North American history. So, thanks again.

25